I love hurricane lanterns as much as I do a good story, and if some forged iron gets thrown in the mix.... well, all the better!
When I ran across this unique bit of work, I wanted to make sure to collect the story so it wasn't lost to time. Far too often, we find contraptions like this on the table at a flea market or estate sale and scratch our heads trying to figure out what the item was meant to do, imagining all sorts of amazing possibilities. Sadly, most times the truth remains a mystery because the story wasn't kept.
This hanger shows great ingenuity. The design might be simple and the forging rather basic, but there's not a hint of wasted movement anywhere. After suffering a tragedy, the folks involved got to work making the best of their situation, and that attitude shows in the ironwork they produced. I can see me lighting the forge to make a few of these Yankton hangers to hang my Feuerhand lanterns in the shop. It'll be real nice to spend an evening in the warm glow of those trusty lanterns adding to the ambiance. "This handy holder was made in the 1900's in Yankton, South Dakota ~ after one of the Lumber Yards had a fire, which destroyed a large part of the inventory. The lumber yard tried to salvage merchandise & started making these lantern holders from the iron strapping that had formerly been used for strapping the old wooden wagons."














